OxfordAQA IGCSE Sociology: Introducing Sociology — Revision Notes

Condensed for the final weeks. For the full explanation, use the Introducing Sociology study guide.

Culture and socialisation

• Culture — the whole way of life of a group: norms, values, roles, beliefs, language.
• Norms — expected behaviours in a given situation. Values — beliefs about what is important.
• Roles — behaviours attached to a position. Status — the position itself.
• Ascribed status is fixed at birth; achieved status is earned.

Primary socialisation occurs in the family in early childhood; secondary socialisation through school, peers, media, religion and workplace.

Agencies and their methods: family (imitation, sanctions), education (formal curriculum and the hidden curriculum), peer group (peer pressure), media (role models and representation), religion, workplace.

Sanctions are positive or negative, formal or informal. Informal sanctions — a look, exclusion from a group — do most of the work of everyday social control.

Nature versus nurture: the sociological evidence is cross-cultural variation in norms and gender roles, and feral children cases where individuals raised without human contact fail to develop language or normal social behaviour. Both show that behaviour assumed to be natural is in fact learnt.

Subculture — a group with distinct norms within a wider society. Counter-culture — one actively opposed to the mainstream.

The main sociological perspectives:

Perspective	Core idea	Main criticism
Functionalism	Institutions work together for stability through shared values	Ignores conflict and inequality
Marxism	Society is shaped by class conflict over economic resources	Over-emphasises economics
Feminism	Society is patriarchal, organised in men’s interests	Treated as though all women share one experience
Interactionism	Society is built from the meanings people give situations	Neglects structural constraints

Functionalism and Marxism are both structural theories, starting from society as a whole; interactionism is a social action theory, starting from the individual. Calling functionalism a micro theory is a common error — it is macro, like Marxism.

Identity

Shaped by gender, ethnicity, social class, age, nationality and religion — each transmitted through the agencies of socialisation.

• Gender identity is socialised through toys, clothing, language, expectations and media representation. The sex/gender distinction matters: sex is biological, gender is socially constructed, which is why gender roles vary between cultures and over time.
• Ethnic identity involves shared culture, language, religion and history. Hybrid identity results from combining elements of two or more cultures — increasingly common with globalisation.

Research methods

Primary data is collected first-hand; secondary already exists. Quantitative is numerical; qualitative is descriptive.

Term	Meaning
Reliability	Repeating the study gives the same result
Validity	It gives a true picture
Representativeness	The sample reflects the wider population

Quantitative methods are strong on reliability, weak on validity; qualitative methods are the reverse. That trade-off answers most methods questions on its own.

Method	Strengths	Weaknesses
Questionnaire	Cheap, large samples, reliable	Low response rate, low validity
Structured interview	Reliable, comparable	Interviewer bias, little depth
Unstructured interview	Valid, detailed	Slow, unreliable, small samples
Participant observation	Very valid, reveals real behaviour	Hawthorne effect, going native, ethical issues
Official statistics	Cheap, large-scale	Socially constructed by the state

Sampling: random, systematic, stratified, quota, snowball, opportunity. A pilot study trials the method first so problems can be corrected.

Ethics: informed consent, confidentiality, protection from harm, no deception, right to withdraw.

Social inequality

Class: life chances — the opportunities for health, education, housing and income — are predicted by class more strongly than by any other single factor.

• Social mobility — intergenerational compares a person with their parents; intragenerational compares stages of their own career.
• Open societies allow movement by merit; closed societies fix status at birth.
• Absolute poverty is lacking the necessities for survival; relative poverty is falling below the standard considered acceptable in that society — which is why relative poverty exists in wealthy countries.
• Cycle of deprivation: poor housing and diet → poor health and education → low-paid work → poverty reproduced in the next generation.

Gender: the glass ceiling, horizontal and vertical segregation, the pay gap. Causes include socialisation, caring responsibilities, discrimination and career interruption. Changes include equal-pay legislation and girls’ educational success.

Ethnicity: discrimination in employment and housing, institutional racism, and media representation. Ethnic and class disadvantage overlap heavily, and much of the apparent ethnic effect narrows once class is controlled for — a qualification that shows judgement.

Exam traps

• Confusing reliability with validity.
• Confusing absolute with relative poverty.
• Confusing ascribed with achieved status.
• Confusing sex with gender.
• Evaluating a method in the abstract rather than for the specific topic.
• Giving one side only when evaluation needs both plus a judgement.

Self-test

1. Distinguish norms from values.
2. What two kinds of evidence support the nurture side of the debate?
3. Distinguish sex from gender, and say why the distinction matters.
4. Distinguish reliability from validity, and say which methods favour each.
5. Explain the cycle of deprivation.

Answers: 1. Norms are expected behaviours in particular situations; values are beliefs about what is important and worth pursuing. 2. Cross-cultural variation in norms and gender roles, and feral children cases where individuals raised without human contact fail to develop language or normal social behaviour. 3. Sex is biological and gender is socially constructed; the distinction explains why gender roles differ between cultures and change over time, which biology alone could not account for. 4. Reliability is consistency on repetition, favoured by quantitative methods; validity is giving a true picture, favoured by qualitative methods. 5. Poor housing and diet produce poor health and educational underachievement, leading to low-paid insecure work, which reproduces the same conditions in the next generation.